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January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
January
22, 2002
Brendan
Cooney
Moby-Dick
and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden
Rick Giombetti
Progressive
Pols for Enron?
Judith
Resnik
Invading
the Courts?
Kevin
Alexander Gray
The
Crisis in Black Leadership
January
21, 2002
Marjorie
Cohn
Will
Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?
Ahmad
Faruqui
MLK
Jr. and the Palestinians
January
19. 2002
Jordan
Green
Enron
Stole Our Future
January
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The
Enron Model
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Group Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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CounterPunch
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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January
27, 2002
Campaign-Finance
Reform?
Think Enron
By Senator Russell Feingold
As the Enron story unfolds, we are reminded why
the U.S. Supreme Court, in its famous 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo
decision, said that the appearance of corruption, not just
corruption itself, justifies congressional action to place limits
on our campaign-finance system.
The court understood that public mistrust
of government is destructive to democracy; from a constitutional
point of view, it hardly matters whether that mistrust is based
on actual misconduct or simply its appearance.
Congress must address public confidence
in government at this crucial time by finally passing campaign-finance
reform.
In the case of Enron's collapse, the
need to address public mistrust is paramount for Congress and
the Bush administration as they investigate alleged wrongdoing.
When a corporation such as Enron leaves
devastated employees and fleeced shareholders in its wake, the
public depends on Congress and the administration to determine
what went wrong and defend the public interest.
But the potential for a conflict of interest
is clear.
Many of the elected officials now asked
to sit in judgment of Enron, including members of Congress,
the attorney general and the president, have been accepting
and even asking for campaign contributions from Enron for years.
The political parties have pocketed more
than $3.5 million in unregulated, unlimited soft money from
Enron since 1991.
Congress must move forward with the investigations
into Enron's conduct, despite the potential conflict of interest
that political contributions might pose.
In fact, this is familiar territory for
Congress. Everyday, members of Congress accept huge campaign
contributions with one hand, and vote on issues affecting their
contributors with the other. And everyday, the public naturally
questions whether their representatives are giving special treatment
to the wealthy interests that fund their campaigns and bankroll
their political parties.
In the case of the Enron investigations,
each member of Congress must decide whether simply donating
Enron contributions to charity or even recusal is the appropriate
way to attempt to address public skepticism.
Enron deftly used the campaign-finance
system to its advantage long before the story of its collapse
made its political contributions so well known. Enron's executives
had a hot line to government leaders shaping energy policy,
and even reportedly were assisted by high government officials
with a debt owed to Enron by the government of India.
The Enron scandal illustrates the permanent
conflict of interest that political contributions -- especially
unlimited soft money contributions to the parties -- have created
for elected officials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
In the case of soft money, both parties
have gladly accepted money from officials at Enron and the auditing
firm of Arthur Andersen. Those soft money contributions compromise
the integrity of members of both parties as inquiries into
these corporations' conduct get under way.
Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision
to recuse himself from the investigation is confirmation of
this deep conflict of interest. The Bush administration must
take every step possible to remove the appearance of a conflict
in all aspects of this case, and if evidence of impropriety
by any high-ranking official arises, it should immediately appoint
a special counsel.
But however hard Congress and the administration
might work to maintain the integrity of the investigations into
Enron's actions, they are hindered from the start by the staggering
sums of money Enron poured into the political system.
We are just beginning to understand the
depth of the accounting and financial scandals Enron and Arthur
Andersen have set in motion, and it will take time to decide
how Congress should work to prevent similar problems in the
future.
But we don't need months to decide how
to address the potential conflict of interest that unlimited
political contributions create for members of Congress and
presidential administrations. The Senate passed the McCain-Feingold
bill to eliminate the soft money system last April, and the
House is poised to debate its counterpart, the Shays-Meehan
bill.
While eliminating soft money will not
cure the campaign-finance system of every ill, it will end a
system of unlimited donations that has blatantly put political
access and influence up for sale.
Enron is just one of the many corporations,
unions and wealthy individuals that has exploited the soft-money
loophole to buy influence with Congress and the executive branch
at the very highest levels.
While Enron's demise has highlighted
some of the worst failings of government, perhaps it can also,
ironically, restore some faith in government by affecting real
change.
One of the first things that can be done
is to shut down the soft-money system. Both Congress and the
Bush administration should take seriously the public's concern
about their potential conflict of interest.
By passing campaign-finance reform, they
can begin to regain some of the public's trust.
Russ Feingold is
a Wisconsin Democrat. He and Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican,
are sponsoring legislation that would ban soft money.
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